AKA Landing: I found the dentist’s appointment card while rummaging through my pocketbook on October 29th. I was cleaning it out in preparation for my trip to Boston to visit my father in the hospital. The card said my next cleaning would be March 20. Isn’t that my dad’s birthday? The first day of spring? […]
Alex and I, once members of the same women’s circle, have been talking about playing scrabble together for the past 15 years. Learning that she was battling cancer was a likely factor that urged me to make the 45 minute drive out to her house and turn our intention into a reality. She lives with […]
Sherry was still on crutches when she came to live with me in my first apartment in Quincy. It was the early 70’s, a time when the flower child innocence of the 60’s was just beginning to sour. But we were still innocent and because we worked in a factory together, we call this period […]
1. I have my suitcase in my bedroom, but it’s not packed. My dad is in the hospital and we are all on the edge of our seats. 2. My current favorite movie is “Off the Map.” 3. This week, I got my teeth cleaned, my hair cut, and a new timing belt put on […]
Who needs a fortune cookie or a psychic reading for the latest predications or insight into yourself? Just type your own name like this “colleen is” in a google search engine and see how accurate the oracle can be. Colleen is teaching “Breaking into Film/TV. Colleen is endorsed by the Washington State Fire Department. Colleen […]
I wade through a sea of leaves on my daily walk to the mailbox. Most people rake leaves this time of year, but there’s no point in doing that in my sprawling yard, where their presence is like an endless incoming tide. By spring most of them will have decomposed and be reduced down to […]
“I WANT THIS PLACE LOOKING LIKE A MILLION BUCKS BY THE TIME YOUR MOTHER GETS HOME!” was a family anthem, coined by my father and heard often when we were growing up. He would usually end it for good effect with “OR HEADS ARE GONNA ROLL!” … Here’s another Redman anthem from our childhood (recited […]
He was an artillery soldier in Patton’s army, and he always maintained that the only reason he survived the war was because of the big cannon-like gun he stood behind. Standing behind his “Long Tom,” surviving the war when so many didn’t, is probably where his trademark saying began: “Somebody upstairs must like me.” ~ […]
Love makes people ferocious. ~ Michael Mead My family tends to go through dramatic events in pairs. First there was a sister and a brother who were both hit by cars when they were teenagers. Both were pedestrians about the same age and needing to change the life course they were on when it […]
1. Yesterday I made a scrabble house-call to a friend’s house in Shawsville. 2. On the way, while driving, a can rolled into the street and I hit it. It didn’t have a chance. 3. My friend is an artist of many different mediums. I took pictures of her studio and her different art work […]
Notes from my journal… On writing poetry: Poetry is like math. You have to add meaning and sound together and make it equal the right answer. On watching the nightly news: For me, it’s like watching sports and the newscasters are the referees. I flip around to all the channels to see how each station […]
For awhile it looked like we would be reading without a mic. “Sort of like going bra-less,” I said to my friend. “You know, like not having any support…for your voice.” She did an inter-active piece, once the Café Del Sol staff got the sound system figured out. She passed out index cards and pens […]
